The Country Dance Goes To Town (1940 article)

Article from 1940 extolling the virtues of country dances—square dances, circle dances, and contra—and describing their recent rise in popularity. The author declares that country dances "provide speed, change, hilarity, good fellowship; their music is fast and the steps are varies. And the calls that go with them leave plenty of room for wisecracks and sly wit. There is sound reason for dragging the square dance and the country dance out of the barn and the grange hall and giving them places of honor on private and public dance floors. ...

"The stock in trade of the caller is his chant, consisting of rhymed instructions to the dancers which vary with each figure and often with each tune. The old-time calls are savory with humor and the old-time caller often has his own variations. ..."